Re: [GIT PULL] percpu fix for v5.9-rc6

[Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>]

On Fri, Sep 18, 2020 at 1:29 PM Arvind Sankar <nivedita@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>
> In general (i.e. outside the implementation of the macro itself), what
> is the preferred way of getting the size of just the header?
>   1) offsetof(typeof(s),flex)
>   2) struct_size(s, flex, 0)

I think those two should end up being equivalent.

>   3) sizeof(s)

This works right now, but exactly *because* it works, we're not seeing
the questionable cases.

Of course, _also_ exactly because it just silently works, I also don't
know if there may be thousands of perfectly fine uses where people
really do want the header, and a "sizeof()" is simpler than
alternatives 1-2.

It's possible that there really are a lot of "I want to know just the
header size" cases. It sounds odd, but I could _imagine_ situations
like that, even though no actual case comes to mind.

>   4) new macro that's easier to read than 1 or 2, but makes it clear
>      what you're doing?

I don't think this would have any real advantage, would it?

Now what might be good is if we can make "struct_size()" also actually
verify that the member that is passed in is that last non-sized
member. I'm not sure how to do that.

I know how to check that it's *not* that last unsized member (just do
"sizeof(s->flex)", and it should error), but I don't see how to assert
the reverse of that).

Because that kind of "yes, we actually pass in the right member" check
would be good to have too.

              Linus